Credit program to encourage Geely car sales in Belarus in development

MINSK, 18 December (BelTA) – Belarusbank is taking part in the development of the credit program meant to encourage Geely car sales. Chairman of the Board of Belarus' largest bank Viktor Ananich made the statement on the air of the TV channel Belarus One, BelTA has learned.

The Belarusbank chairman of the board said: “I personally visited the car factory and tested both cars — the sedan and the Atlas model. Those are good-quality cars. Together with the manufacturer we are now looking into options [to encourage car sales], including a credit program. I cannot mention any concrete results yet. We are working on it.”

Viktor Ananich remarked that the state will have to pitch in in order to make the loans affordable. “It is an international practice when many brands, including in Russia, are sold with the state support. This is why any options are possible,” he noted.

The Belarusbank head reminded that a leasing scheme to sell these cars is already in place. “It is available via our daughter enterprise ASB Leasing among other options. Geely cars are sold via leasing now. The demand is rather high. The population is active about it,” he said.

Viktor Ananich also talked about the strategy adopted to guide Belarusbank's development till 2020. “First of all, we should improve the effectiveness of the bank's work. There are plans to develop information technologies, switch to digital technologies. We intend to increase lending to corporations by 50%. We will continue supporting small and medium companies. For instance, we intend to increase the share of SME loans from 17% to 22% among Belarusian banks,” he said.

The Belarusbank head noted that thanks to the central bank's efforts to reduce the refinancing rate the interest rate on Belarusian ruble loans for corporations had dropped to 11% per annum within one year. “As far as foreign currency loans are concerned, the average interest rate has dropped from 8.2% in Q4 2016 to 6% in Q4 2017. The same trends are observed in lending to individuals. While in Q4 2016 the interest rate was 20.7%, in Q4 2017 the average interest rate on loans for natural persons was 11.3%,” said Viktor Ananich. He specified that the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus intends to slightly reduce the refinancing rate in 2018, too.